Facebook News Feed Algorithm to Punish Click-Bait Posts
Facebook is making an update to News Feed ranking to reduce clickbait headlines in the coming weeks.
Facebook employees recently sorted through tens of thousands of headlines, categorizing them as click-bait or not, to help come up with an algorithm that will automatically determine if a news story is suspect as soon as it’s uploaded to the site, the company said in a blog post Thursday. The more a publisher posts click-bait, the more Facebook will limit how often its stories can be seen in the news feed.
The change comes after Facebook listened to users who reported that the problem persisted, even after the company tried to address it in 2014.
Click-bait headlines are defined as those that withhold crucial information or create misleading expectations for the reader.